Christmas Memories
by LightWoman
Summary: Reflections of Christmas past.
1. Chapter 1

This fic will comprise short reflections from characters relating to Christmas, mostly more angsty than fluffy. At the moment, I have plans to do Cal and Emily as well, and if inspiration strikes me I may do others.

**Disclaimers: Don't own anything to do with the show.**

_Gillian_

What I remember about Christmas as a child is, more than anything, the smells. Gingerbread and cinnamon and mulled wine wafting through the house in clouds that on some days seemed almost visible to me. My father would always buy my mother perfume, and she'd spritz some on her wrist seconds after tossing the wrapping to the side. The smell of pine from the Christmas tree filled the house, brandy and orange from my mother's homemade Christmas pudding invaded your nose the second you entered the kitchen, the pot pourri my mother put out for when the family visited was always spicy, rich, warm and festive.

There was something else that rattled around the house every December, easing the chill from my bones and making my smile just a little bit wider: hope. That next year would be _the _year, when so many things happened. The year when a sober day for my father was not a rare occasion to be noted and celebrated, but a normal occurrence, so usual it almost went unnoticed. The year when my soaring grades, career ambitions and pipe dreams were not scoffed at or ignored, but instead praised, encouraged, welcomed. The year when the word _family _wasn't associated with _false _or _pretend _or _lie_, but instead became something so real to me, to all of us, that we could forget a time when it wasn't.

Christmas time, when the fire was always burning, the lights on the tree were twinkling, the presents were piled high – that was the time I felt the most hope. It was the time – when my parents were giving each other kisses on the cheek in thanks for their presents, when we were all laughing at the silly jokes in crackers, when we were eating good food and genuinely feeling we could stand each other's company – that I felt most like we were the family I'd always craved.

Hope doesn't have a smell, but if it did, I know exactly what it would be. Gingerbread and cinnamon and mulled wine, pot pourri, perfume and pine, brandy and orange, and the smell of warmth, and happiness, and home.


	2. Chapter 2

_Cal_

If you want to believe something badly enough, you will. If you tell your mind, over and over, that it really happened, you'll start to believe it. It's because of this that I remember Christmas Day with my father.

I remember his rough laugh echoing around the small room, and the gentler sound of my mother's giggle as he pulled her into an embrace and began to dance with her. I remember he wore his best suit, grinned when I opened my present, helped me put together the race car he'd bought.

I remember it snowed; we built a snowman together, we laughed through a snowball fight, he pulled me along the street on my toboggan.

I remember him asking for a third helping of roast potatoes; I remember him standing at the kitchen sink, wiping up as my mother washed; I remember him planting a stubbled kiss to my forehead when it was eventually time for bed.

I know it never happened. I know that by the time I was old enough to remember anything more than fragments he was long gone, but that doesn't stop me remembering it. His laugh, his grin, the feel of his well-aimed snowballs hitting my coat. I know it never happened, but even a false memory is better than nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

_Emily_

When I think about Christmasses in the past, what I remember the most vividly is not Christmas itself, but _after_. I remember how bare the walls and the rooms looked without the tree and decorations; I remember playing with my new toys or, as I got older, listening to new CDs or watching new DVDs in my room; I remember the sadness that came with the lack of lights and festivities, and the knowledge that soon I'd be back at school. And I remember how, after Christmas, things went back to normal. My parents let the angry words escape in hisses and snarls, no longer trying to hide them _because it's Christmas_. The false smiles and forced pecks on the cheek and the biting of lips to keep back the flood of words was gone; no need to pretend, not when it's not Christmas anymore.

You might think that I hated that. Most people would assume that Christmas, and my Mom and Dad pretending they were happy together, would have made me happier too. And what kind of person would prefer to hear their parents yelling at each other rather than making polite conversation? Maybe most people would prefer the quiet and the smiles, even if they never reached their eyes. But not me. I'm not saying I liked my parents fighting, I'm not saying I enjoyed being caught between the two people I love most in the world, I'm not saying it was a _happy _environment when they were in the middle of one of their bitter feuds. But those were the times when I had something that has become very rare in my family, something which I cling to desperately: the truth.


End file.
